


and dress them in warm clothes again

by kitmarlowed



Series: tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us [1]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, graphic depictions of self harm, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/pseuds/kitmarlowed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scientists were always under the impression that you didn’t understand English until the drugs started kicking in, it’s not strictly true. You understood it fine, when you listened and you didn’t do that very often. Therein lay the problem. The rabids don’t respond because they don’t care, they don’t listen, not because they don’t understand. It’s easier to pretend you don’t know English.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and dress them in warm clothes again

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based on the poem 15 Ways to Stay Alive by Daphne Gottlieb. Title from Siken. Warnings for suicide, cutting, suicide planning, death, emotional manipulation.

**And dress them in warm clothes again**

One. You’d done it before, before you ‘Did It’ properly. You don’t tell Jem that, don’t tell your parents, don’t tell them that the night you died was not the first time that army knife had touched your skin. Your arms were sacrificial, the easiest place to get to, the typical place to use, to release. The blood you saw when you still could see was black to your eyes, the poisons of guilt and heartbreak and anger just flowing away, rivers at first and then ebbing away while your consciousness waned. Relief, you tell Amy and you are not lying but there was more in those last moments. There was, if only for a short time, peace. You gave the world your arms, but only as you left it.

Two. Rick kissed like he was frightened, like he wanted to but didn’t at the same time and that the latter mattered more. Simon kisses like a freight-train, like an attack, then like a drowning man when he realises you aren’t pulling away – that you don’t regret it. Simon kisses like you’re all he wants, Simon is not Rick. Simon kisses the pretence off of you – Rick kissed you and then wanted you to keep it there.

Three. The scientists were always under the impression that you didn’t understand English until the drugs started kicking in, it’s not strictly true. You understood it fine, when you listened and you didn’t do that very often. Therein lay the problem. The rabids don’t respond because they don’t care, they don’t listen, not because they don’t understand. It’s easier to pretend you don’t know English.

Four. Pretend that nothing happened until you start to believe it. Even if you don’t, keep pretending. Hide the scars, wear the makeup, the contacts, walk slowly, do not limp. Pretend. Pretend. Don’t let them drag you away from your family again, don’t let them test your loyalties.

Five. When their loyalties are tested and they do not choose you, now is your time to stop pretending. Offer them the truth, that this is you now, that you’re still the same but changed and that this isn’t wrong. This is life ( _death_ ) people aren’t the same from day to day let alone after all you’ve been through. You offer them the truth, then you offer them to the wolves.

Six. You push Simon, because you disagree, because you can see yourself falling for the mysterious stranger, because you don’t want to fall. So you push and you push and you push and you’re mean, and in the end it’s all unnecessary because when it’s crunch time you go to him to lose yourself, _you_ go to _him_. And then it all slips away, he goes to you, he jumps in front of a bullet for you, betrays himself, the prophet for you. He’s a clean knife in your chest – he doesn’t infect you. But you’re the rust creeping across him. You’re tainting him, you always, _always_ taint.

Seven. When your hands start to shake don’t assume, don’t dare think that you’re in danger, that maybe you’re going rabid again. When your hands start to shake don’t wonder, don’t wonder if maybe the opposite’s true – that you’re becoming human. When your hands start to shake don’t touch things to see if you can feel more than you should. Your hands start to shake, shake them to stop it. Feel the cool air on your skin. Ignore it.

Eight. You don’t force yourself to get over Rick, it’s organic, you move on.

Nine. There’s no easy get out plan this time, like Jem notes you can’t kill yourself twice but you’ve thought about how you might bring about a second death. You could go rabid, you’d thought but then that happens and you’re saved. You could get someone else to do it but you doubt you’re brave enough for that. You could shoot yourself and see.  But things aren’t like they were, even without Amy (and you miss her, _god_ you miss her) there are people who will stop you getting too far inside your own head that your fingers itch for a knife. Simon, who’ll stand between you and harm, your dad who’ll talk you down, your mum and sister who’ll draw close to protect you the best they know how. You have better support structures in death than you did in life, or maybe you’re only now noticing that some of them where there all along. You just didn’t want to admit yourself to them. You’re braver now. You let them help.

Ten. You and Simon can speak the same language, you both know what it’s like to want escape, albeit from different things. You both speak poetry; he can keep up with you on art better than anyone else ever could. You talk for hours on favourite lines, his love of Yeats, a family trait, your affinity for Siken and the cold hard truth. He smiles when you tell him you like him a lot in the best way you know how, your art. He sees the sketch and won’t stop smiling for a long time. You can keep up with each other, and he’s there for things you can’t say to your parents. For when the nightmares get too much, for when the darkness comes back and lurks in your periphery. But there are some things you don’t tell him. Your hand shakes and you still it. You keep that to yourself.

Eleven. You really did try to resist, to laugh at him, mock him, to keep yourself separate but he’s always been so earnest and he’s always wanted you. He does what you ask, you ask him to return the keys – he does and your views on him shift. You ask him to stop, he stops. You tell him you’re staying, he vows to stay too. He is devotion, you’re just attachment. You don’t love him like he loves you, but that’s fine. You love him plenty; you love him enough for him. You hope you do.

Twelve. Sometimes flights of fancy are healthy – imagine a world with no PDS. Imagine a world where you didn’t kill yourself, a world where you meet Amy in Roarton and Amy’s not dying. Imagine a world like that and you’ll have to choose – do you have a world where Rick never leaves for the army, where you have him and keep him? Or do you have a world where he does leave and you do lose yourself in the loss of him. Does this world ever get Simon? Do you ever meet Simon, do you ever love again? Imagine a world without zombies – what then?

Thirteen. Pretend you’re stronger than you are. Keep up the front. Pretend it doesn’t knock the breath out of you that your parents don’t trust you, that dad doesn’t recognise you. Pretend that you don’t understand why. Pretend like you’ve always pretended. That there’s nothing different about you. But eventually there’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Eventually one lie is too many and you have to let them know. Invite Simon to lunch, and let it stay open to interpretation. Pretend there’s a possibility that you aren’t who you are.

Fourteen. Now there are things above yourself that you would die for. You’d have died for Amy, if you could’ve. You’d die for Simon, you’d die for Jem, and you’d die for your mum and dad. You’d never die just to leave, not know you know the weight and price of death. Not know you’ve seen your mother cry at your return. You’ve seen your father break over holding your body in his arms, your blood on his hands. You are who you’ve always been, but now you inhabit that skin fully. You aren’t escapism to find yourself, because yourself isn’t to be found elsewhere – yourself is here, in Roarton valley, with your family, with Simon. With the memories and the pain and the heartache and the history. The old and the new. Your place is here and you aren’t leaving. You would die to keep what you have. You will not die to leave it, not again.

Fifteen. Don’t forget anything. Don’t forgive the townspeople, the mob for their folly. Understand why but don’t forgive for they will not forgive you one step out of line. Roarton without Maxine Martin is not suddenly a paradise – there are dangers still and hatred simmering under layers of false sincerity, false kindness. There’s plots and intrigues and you hear them now, you don’t ignore them. You will not let your second life be taken out of your hands again. Perhaps you were born for this. Perhaps you are better off this way.           

 


End file.
